Life in a Manual Wheelchair – It Will Have to Be Coffee, Not Tea Today

I’ve written so many product reviews over the last year that it’s becoming almost a full-time job. There have been canes, walking sticks, walkers, shower chairs, recliner chairs, pumps, thickeners, and now both electric and manual wheelchairs. I don’t know what’s next… and I can’t say I want to know. This marks my first week or so full-time in a manual wheelchair, having given up both the walker (I was still losing balance) and the electric wheelchair.

A few weeks ago, after two incidents, I permanently parked my electric wheelchair outdoors. As I’d written about before, my wife and I were walking down a pedestrianized street when I froze while driving. Despite being fully conscious with my eyes open, my hand remained locked on the forward joystick, and I drove into a curb and then a tree. As much as I knew what was going to happen, my body simply couldn’t move.

More worryingly, my son warned me I nearly hit a child while reversing inside a building because I can’t easily turn my head. All in all – too dangerous.

For a while I kept using the electric wheelchair indoors, where I hoped to cause less damage. The simple truth, however, is that I don’t have fine enough motor control for it. The evidence is clear: the sheer number of marks and holes in the walls, and the damage to furniture. Unless we line the house with bumpers, it’s not safe. So, I’ve mothballed my good friend, the electric wheelchair.

(And yes, we have road-tested the remote-control and rear-panel adaptations for the two chairs I own – they simply don’t do the job.)

So: life in a manual wheelchair begins now, supplemented by plenty of grab bars and special chairs for my bathroom world. Below are the wins, the annoyances (including the coffee/tea example), and what I’ve learned from this latest transition.

There are some important wins to highlight – the first two might sound straight out of Reader’s Digest and perhaps emphasize my reaching for some positives. The third, however, is undeniably real:

• Comfort: It’s comfortable. I bought a good chair with a quality cushion, which is a significant plus compared to my electric models (especially the lightweight newcomer). Given I sit most of the day, this is a bigger win than one might initially think.
• Portability: It’s easy to use and ultra-light to put in the car (12 kg). That said, see the next point about weight.
• Exercise: Lastly (and I’m not including the 18-inch rims as a win, though as a young driver, I might have been impressed!), there’s the exercise. It’s incredible arm exercise. A wheelchair renders BMI irrelevant. At 6’5″ (194 cm), my height doesn’t matter; weight does. I’m propelling 12 kg plus more than 100 kg of body/furniture weight with my arms. A tall lump is the same as a short one. It doesn’t matter whether it is good or bad weight (muscle or fat) – it’s all weight, and it makes the workout tough and effective. This pairs well with my yoga and four 25-minute exercise bike sessions per week for my legs.

I have found by accident an exercise routine that works for my upper body and lower body – say goodbye to cross-fit!

But now, we move to the less pleasant side. Being pushed is tiring for the helper (possibly the understatement of the year), so if our carer (who’s successfully tried pushing me before) begins on Sunday, it will be a major relief. I’m truly grateful to the friends and family who push me now… it will be an even worse experience as it gets hotter, and I suspect volunteers will be scarcer.

Leaving aside this huge issue for those trying to move me, which I don’t underestimate, let me move to my selfish peeves:

This morning at 1:14 a.m. I wanted tea, but the tea bags were out of reach, and I didn’t feel stable enough to stretch for them, so I went for decaf coffee instead. This is fixable – and my height and long arms help – but it’s a stark example of how your world shrinks. We’ll sort out a reachable tea-bag drawer or a wall-mounted dispenser, but the point stands.

You need both arms to propel the chair, so you can’t easily hold anything like a phone. Yesterday I balanced a flask of tea between my knees and a bowl of ice cream on my lap – a ridiculous and potentially dangerous scene. I have seen good adaptations – including a friend in a wheelchair using a chessboard as a tray – and we will develop useful aides.

Compared with an electric wheelchair, a manual chair is slower and far more time-consuming. It takes real effort to go anywhere, and being deliberate is key. I’m not used to planning internal journeys; I’ve always planned international trips instead. Forgetting your phone in the bedroom or your pills in the bathroom now means a lot more effort to retrace your steps. Like many people, I often forget things somewhere… it’s now much more of a pain. It is truly frustrating.

I’ve always been disorganized, relying on intuition and memory. For years I tried task managers (OneNote, Evernote, Notes, Google Tasks, notebooks), but nothing stuck. My inbox used to have over 12,000 unread emails; it’s currently 8,208. The surprising thing is that I managed pretty well despite that. (Don’t follow my lead!)

The good news is this transition is finally making me think before I act and forcing me to slow down. And, bonus, it’s making “grazing” a little tougher!

This is yet another major adjustment, but it has clarified what truly matters: safety, deliberate planning, and gratitude for the small wins. The manual wheelchair isn’t what I wanted, and I haven’t even described how it feels to be in a wheelchair being pushed, but it’s far less of an issue than I feared, and we move on. One more change, one more adaptation. I have to continue to move beyond the emotional sensitivity to change… because it is so regular.

What next, I wonder? Well, today, a new Mac (with a bigger screen because of my failing eyesight) – that will be much more fun! (And my daughter, who needed a computer, gets my retirement gift to myself of my old, but still pretty new, one). So today could be good!